Womanly Wiles and Children
by tkelparis
Summary: Jenny's death leads to a stunning realization for the Doctor. Trouble is, his people's past might prevent him from doing anything. But can he put something else to the test?


**Title**: Womanly Wiles and Children

**Rating**: T (rather heavy one)

**Author**: tkel_paris

**Summary**: Jenny's death leads to a stunning realization for the Doctor. Trouble is, his people's past might prevent him from doing anything. But can he put something else to the test?

**Disclaimer**: The Doctor would've at least openly called Donna his best friend had I anything to do with the characters.

**Dedication**: Pretty sure this one can be blamed on tardis-mole. Yes, you again, my friend. Thank you for this one. :D

**Author's Note**: Oh, the possibilities left unanswered by The Doctor's Daughter! But here I'm putting aside all the things associated with Jenny. It's all about Donna and the Doctor.

**Womanly Wiles and Children**

**Started May 8, 2012**

**Finished October 7, 2013**

The Doctor sat in the kitchen that the TARDIS had created for Donna, nursing a cup of tea. He hadn't moved since he'd sent them into the Vortex after all was said and done. He was letting the TARDIS figure out some possible destinations for the morrow.

Donna was right. They should find a planet in Jenny's honour, and explore it for her. Do things to cherish the memories they had of her.

Didn't make the hole in his chest any less painful.

In fact, the hole seemed to have exposed a different emptiness in his soul. He was trying to focus enough to place what it signified.

"Doctor?"

He looked up slowly as Donna sat across from him, her own cup in hand. Her eyes looked into his, as though they could see into his soul. Sometimes he thought she could – she was so good at reading him and seeing through his lies.

Shivering suddenly, which had nothing to do with his jacket resting over another chair, he shook his head. "So what kind of a planet do you think she would've chosen-"

"I'm not looking to talk about Jenny."

He blinked, and then his eyes were still.

Her eyes were soft, and she swallowed – clearly ready to ask a delicate question. "You said you had a family, Doctor. How long has it been since you lost them? Earth years and your own?"

Oh. He wasn't expecting that. But he should've. She asked all sorts of questions about him. In ways that made it feel less like a violation of his privacy – as it had whenever Rose or Martha had asked – and more like an invitation to let an old wound have a chance to start healing. It was one more reason he was so keen on keeping her with him as long as possible – he was starting to wonder how he functioned without a Donna in his life as his touchstone.

Sighing, he knew he wasn't getting out of this one. She thought he needed to talk, and she was far too talented at coaxing things out of him. Best be honest and not force her to drag things out of him. "904 Earth years since the Time Lock."

Donna's eyes narrowed. "Isn't that how old you claim to be?"

"No point in admitting my real age. No one would believe it. Hard enough for most humans to swallow my being 904. Besides, I'd rather take it from when I was left as the last of my kind."

She thought about that a moment. "How many years for you then?"

He took a deep breath. "One Earth year equals seven Gallifreyan years."

Donna was good at maths. The calculation didn't take long. "That's 6,328 years!"

He just nodded, drained at the thought.

She sucked in a breath. "Your family, who did you lose?"

He swallowed hard. "My children, my grandchildren, their children... my mother, my brother, my cousins... Everyone. All of my descendants had already been killed in the war." He choked slightly, fighting to hold back the emotions that his Eighth self had died with and his Ninth self had been born carrying as his burden.

Donna let go of her tea and gently grabbed his hands, prying them from his tea. "Oh, you poor Spaceman. No wonder it hurts so much. You craved a family again, and the promise that suddenly appeared was just as suddenly ripped from you."

As the tears started falling again, his mind drifted to the future that now couldn't be. "I'm not sure how I would've been as a father had Jenny lived," he admitted softly.

She smiled, just as softly. "You were doing great once you accepted her into your hearts. You would've taught her how to fly the TARDIS. Of course I would've asked to be part of the lessons so I could learn more."

That drew a smile out of him. A little one.

"You would've shown her all the books you have from Gallifrey, taught her your language. Everything a human parent would do – just on a different level. Although her being physically grown would've made things interesting – it was pretty clear to me that she was missing a lot of practical knowledge about the everyday things. I would've had to teach her that since you get all caught up in the big picture."

He couldn't even find the energy to be annoyed at the subtle insult. It was the truth. "I wasn't allowed to be very involved in my children's lives, Donna. The rules and expectations were all geared to produce more dispassionate Time Lords."

Donna blinked. "What about playing? Fun? Friendship? Family bonds?"

"Those were all discouraged. We didn't have toys like children of most any other species do. We had tungsten bricks to create ordered 3-D shapes telepathically, and board games designed to teach us how to control our psychokinetic abilities. From almost the moment we emerged from the Looms, we began training for our adult roles. Fun was a foreign concept to the adults. It was practically drilled out of us at the Academy – if not before. Friendships were difficult to form, harder to keep since we were all supposed to work together to keep time flowing correctly. And family bonds? I don't think I ever knew what it was to be loved by family. One grandchild, she eventually went by the cover name 'Susan', I think she did. She went with me when I was exiled the first time."

That left Donna speechless.

He wasn't the type to like long silences. Not when he had someone who liked to talk almost as much as he did. Clearing his throat, he had to ask her something that had only now come to mind. "Donna, what is it like to be a human child? What is life like for them?"

Given how she blinked, eyes wide, she wasn't expecting that. She thought a moment. "Well...mine wasn't anything like ideal, especially because of my ginger hair."

He frowned. Why did humans of her era hate gingers so much?!

"Anyway," she continued, clearing her throat. "We hold the babies a lot, even the small children sometimes – depending on the parent. We pull faces, make them laugh, tickle them, sing songs and nursery rhymes, play games with them. I know I would. I wanted more affection shown from my mum. But my dad, Gramps, and Gran would just spend time with me. A child's shown around. Life is exploring the world – as much of it as you can reach." She smiled. "In some ways, babies and small children are rather like you. They use their mouths to explore."

He wasn't sure what he felt about being compared with a very physically and mentally immature being. And he knew that Donna complained about what she called his vocal fixation and licking fetish.

"How they learn depends on the parents and what schools they're sent to. But some things are pretty universal. You're around other kids your age, you learn about whatever you're exposed to, you try to do things you want to do. Holidays as breaks from routine. Some kids conform, some rebel. Some are extra curious about things and ask questions, which isn't always encouraged. You start to grow into an adult, learn about the kind of people you're attracted to. Maybe become a mature grown-up, maybe get a career you actually love. Maybe you marry. Maybe you have a family. There are expectations on human kids, too, Doctor. It's not all silly fun."

But tears still came again, this time hovering inside his eyes. "Sounds a lot nicer than my childhood." He took a deep breath and wiped his eyes. "Not sure if I could handle that."

"I think you'd do better than you think."

He looked up at her in surprise. "How do you mean?"

Donna's smile grew a bit. "I've noticed that the best dads are still big kids at heart, and you are the universe's biggest kid. Yet you've got enough maturity to care about being responsible. You'd be a great dad. Trust me."

Suddenly, images popped into his head in rapid succession. They took his breath away, even not factoring the implications.

"What is it? What's popped up?"

He swallowed, but was able to keep the words inside. His speech was distant, his mind caught in the pictures he was describing. "I can see myself reading to a young boy from a Gallifreyan book, using it to teach him to write the language. A girl about Susan's age listening as I explain flying the TARDIS. Another girl, a bit younger, using my screwdriver for repairs, under my guidance. Another boy, older than the first, helping me locate parts on some world." Tears fell again as the images tugged so sharply against his hearts. "I don't recognise any of them."

Donna's smile became watery. "So it's true: women aren't the only ones who get what's sometimes called baby fever. We might advertise it more, but we don't have a monopoly on it."

"Is that what this is?" His voice reflected how confused he felt, and the strange longings.

"You like the picture of parenthood I gave, and you yearn for a family. You want kids, Spaceman. Might actually be good for you – give you a reason to be more careful with your life."

He blinked and gulped. "I don't want a progenation machine involved. Or a Loom."

Her face tightened slightly. "Then you need to go find a woman to have and raise them with."

He flinched. He didn't want to look. He wouldn't need to, if only...

She paused. "Or would that be betraying...?"

That caught his attention. "Rose? No, no, no, no, no. We weren't like that. Really," he sighed. "She wasn't ready to be a mother. Not even close." He cringed, suddenly remembering a lot of the examples that proved that.

Donna gripped his hands again before letting go to drink more tea. "Any ideas on who she might be?"

He did. Unfortunately, he could see a slap in his future. Instead, he cleared his throat. "Donna, the Time Lords were sterile for over a billion years. We were cursed with infertility. Supposedly the curse was lifted before the end, but I don't even know if I _could_ have children in anything like the way you're used to."

She froze, breath sucked in until she had to force herself to breathe out. "Oh." She gripped her tea and sipped again.

"And I'd need to be able to trust her with a lot of my secrets. You know I keep a lot of them."

She put down her finished mug, thinking. "You seemed to have a pretty good picture in your mind of what they might look like. Might give some clues about what their mother would be like."

His blush couldn't be suppressed. He couldn't believe it. She was right in front of him, she was brilliant... how many clues had she missed?

"What? Let me guess, their mother's blonde. That's usually how things are."

He rubbed his face, trying to hide from her. "Ginger." He didn't try to muffle it. He knew Donna would keep at it until he was clear.

There was a long silence. Then: "Ginger?! Why would you want ginger kids?!"

His hands dropped to the table to fix a pointed stare. "I've always wanted to be ginger. I like the colour range. It's my favourite hair colour. I mean, this looks fine," he added, fingering his wild locks. "It is the best hair I've had, but anyone could have it. Ginger? That's special. Gingers are special." He hoped the finality of his tone would keep her from challenging that, even with her apparent self-doubts. Which he hated.

She was silent for a long moment, before forcing an awkward laugh. "Okay. Next you're gonna tell me that at least one of them had my eyes!"

He just looked at her.

Donna looked into his eyes, and plainly saw she'd hit the mark. Her jaw dropped.

"Donna Noble," he slowly said, struggling to get the words out since he knew that nothing but honesty would keep their friendship intact after this moment. "You're the only person who's made me think about going into any kind of...domestic life. I don't know what I could be capable of given the life I have to lead, but you've inspired me. Sometimes I think I could manage anything with you around. I know you want to be a mother. If I thought I could, I'd make you one...if you could stand having half alien children with a skinny streak of alien nothing."

He'd never hated those words of hers more than he did at that moment. And his voice showed it.

She was blushing, her face almost the shade of her hair. How much had she hurt them that day? Or today. But the habits of a lifetime couldn't be ignored. "You can't be serious. You didn't even trust my womanly wiles."

It was his turn to grab hands. "Listen, Donna, I stopped you because you've been through enough where men are concerned. I know enough to know that you let yourself settle and use flirting when you shouldn't have had to. I wasn't about to let you degrade yourself."

She blinked, then narrowed her eyes. "And you let Jenny handle them?"

He cringed. "Hadn't yet accepted her."

She snorted. "Explains why I didn't see anything like an Oncoming Dad."

"Oncoming Dad?"

"Overly protective toward his little girl. That was my dad and Gramps toward me. I suppose once I discovered boys I overcompensated at times." She cleared her throat.

His hands gripped hers a bit tighter. He knew it was bordering on possessive, but he couldn't stop it. "You're amazing, Donna. You deserve far better. Better than I could probably give."

"Are you kidding? You've made me believe in myself, given me a calling in life, been my best friend ever. How could anything beat that?"

"A man who could give you children," he whispered.

She turned her hands to grip his. "I told Martha that I'm traveling with you forever. I've already given up on motherhood and marriage, Spaceman. You need someone, and I like being that someone. I wouldn't do anything to hurt things between us. At least not knowingly. I always put my foot in it."

Sighing, he chanced getting up and tugging her to her feet. "Donna," he murmured as he wrapped her into a hug that he guessed they both needed. "You tell me things I need to hear. Sometimes there's no way to say them nicely. But your bluntness is what I need. And you are a beautiful woman. If I could have children, I'd want them to be yours. And Jenny was effectively yours."

"How?" she demanded, not trying to pull back.

"She was imprinting on you. I couldn't be father _and_ mother to her, so she found a role model in you. And I couldn't have been luckier."

She dried her tears with her hand, trying to not get them on his shirt. "So let me get this straight. You just thought of what our children might look like? Have you ever even had sex?"

He shook his head.

She narrowed her eyes. "Have you ever been been a recipient of womanly wiles?"

He cringed. "A few times. Didn't like the experience. Probably because I didn't like the woman – or girl – involved."

"Doctor, has it occurred to you that if we were able to mate, I'd be using a lot of wiles on you? Are you sure you'd even like that?"

He blushed, almost as red as her face got. "Um..." he equivocated, freeing a hand to rub his neck.

"Wait! You have wondered?!"

He cleared his throat and let go of her completely, taking a half step back. "Yes," he whispered, waiting to see if she would slap him.

She didn't. She stared at him, hands at her side. "You mean, you'd like to experience my womanly wiles? You really stopped me because you didn't like me using them on someone else?"

He fidgeted. "Yes." His voice hadn't been so small since – well, since the last time she'd caught him in a lie. Only this wasn't a lie. Unwilling to listen to her reject him, he started walking out.

She grabbed his arms, tugging him to face her. She eyed him, looking almost like a hunter evaluating its potential prey. "Then..." she walked her fingers toward his chest "you wouldn't mind if I did this?"

He blinked, not sure what she was doing, and gasped when she found what he assumed were vestigial nipples. Oh!

Donna's lips curled slightly toward a smile. She stroked his face with feather-light touches. "You seem to like touch, Doctor. Starved for it during your life?"

His eyes fluttered closed as her fingers moved to explore his neck. He could barely focus on her question. "Yeah..." he trailed off, sucking in a breath as she found a sensitive spot near his hairline.

"Hmm." Donna's fingers went to exploring his scalp. "So that's also sensitive in Time Lords."

He moaned, unaware how needy it sounded. Oh, good thing he'd kept peoples' hands off his hair and head! Donna had to have magic fingers, he was sure of it!

Eyes widening, she lowered one hand to slowly stroke down his back. "How much do you want to be shown, Spaceman?"

"As much... ooh... as you're willing."

She stopped her hands, and pulled away. "Oops. That's more along the lines of the start of a seduction."

He opened his eyes, realizing he was panting. "Then how would it end?" he begged, body trembling with what felt like the start of a wildfire.

Donna stared at him. "You're serious?!"

"Absolutely! I need to know, Donna! Please, teach me." He didn't care anymore that he had no pride left. His body trembled and he gave her his best puppy-eyes, or as she called the pleading look.

She was silent for a lot longer than he liked. He was practically vibrating.

Then Donna's eyes shone with a confidence he'd always wanted to see in them. "Spaceman," she said, in a sing-song caution, "if we go any further, we're going to need a bedroom to be naked together in."

His jaw dropped and he couldn't speak, but he didn't hesitate. He nodded, having already surrendered to her lead.

She smirked and grabbed his hand. "Be a good boy and I'll let you indulge your oral fixation on my freckles." She leaned in to whisper, "I have them _all over._"

That stopped all remaining rational thought as she tugged him to her room. He didn't know what being a good boy meant, but he'd gladly let her teach him that too!

/=/=/=/

A few days later, he'd learned a lot about womanly wiles and what being a good boy could mean. The latter, he learned, depended on Donna's mood and whims. Not that he had any cause for complaint. If anything, the exposure to human sexual practices left him wanting additional exposure.

Thank Rassilon that Donna was happy to oblige! She enjoyed knowing more about something than he did, and had delighted in finding that he was utterly affected by her wiles.

Actually, he was even happier she'd listened when he told her to save her wiles for later. It wasn't that he thought poorly of them, but he'd seen her demean herself toward men before and he didn't want her to do it again. That he wasn't quite at the point of accepting Jenny yet played into it. He'd told her all that, so it didn't need revisiting ever again.

As he strolled through the TARDIS hallways, he grinned. What would Donna have in mind tonight? She'd certainly proved willing to 'seduce' him into some new activity whenever he flashed a hopeful puppy-eyes look her way.

Perhaps he had to appease the TARDIS a bit, though. She hadn't seemed so keen on the antics in the Control Room earlier that day, or the... vigorous activity against the kitchen door two nights ago. But she hadn't indicated she outright wanted them to stop, so she had to have decided that his being happy was worth the annoyance of bipeds shagging inside her.

He was not sharing that thought with Jack. Rassilon knew what naughty thought he'd come up with.

And this had given him the hope he'd needed after losing Jenny. Now he felt like he could go on in her memory. The pain was still there and cut deeply, that hadn't changed. What changed was that he knew he would handle it better than any previous losses since he had support this time.

The Doctor was cheerfully contemplating asking about some activities he'd read about in a book on human mating that he wasn't sure who had brought aboard when he felt the Old Girl suddenly nudge him mentally. "What?"

He listened a moment, and heard a note of alarm. Then she fed him an image of Donna, in her sexy jim-jams, lying on her bathroom floor, seemingly unconscious.

He rushed to her room, barged in and didn't see her. "Donna?!" He checked the loo, and there she was – just as the TARDIS had shown him. She'd passed out in the midst of undoing the fancy hairstyle she'd worn today for their 1926 adventure.

"Donna!" He scooped her into his arms and pulled out the Sonic. "Donna?! Wake up, please!"

She stirred. "Not... so loud," she muttered.

He scanned her frantically.

She grimaced at the sound. "Stop bleeping me!" she snapped quietly, without much force.

If she couldn't swat him, that was alarming. "You passed out. I have the right to-"

The sonic made an odd sound, like radio static signaling something trying to come through.

She frowned. "Okay, then, what's wrong? Why do I feel so weak and faint?"

He listened to the readings, and his jaw dropped. He tried to form sounds, but his throat wouldn't work.

"Doctor?" She managed to look up at him. "You're starting to scare me. The cyanide was enough for one day."

He swallowed, forcing his mouth shut so he could make sound happen. "Donna... you fainted because an embryo just implanted."

She blinked wildly. "What?!"

He slowly met her disbelieving eyes. "You're pregnant," he whispered.

Donna's mouth went slack. Her eyes seemed to ask him a hundred questions at once.

The Doctor felt his mouth turning up at the corners. "I... well, with the time dilation accounted for, it's been six days since we first... made love. That's the minimum time it takes from conception to implantation in humans. Somehow, we've... bridged the gap between our species... without medical help."

She remembered the talk that had led them to this moment, and took a deep breath. "Still want those half Human Time Tots?"

Now he was utterly beaming. "Oh, yes! Especially if they're all ginger like their mum!"

Donna opened her mouth to remind him that they might get his hair, or something else either of them had a recessive trait for, but his lips covered hers tenderly. She quickly found herself being carried to her bed by a skinny Time Lord eager to celebrate their miracle.

Eh, maybe she would go with the flow. Even if her hair wasn't ready for bed at all. Maybe she could turn that process into something new for him, too. Both of them, really.

**THE END**


End file.
